


Merry Appropriated Pagan Traditions

by dragonimp



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Christmas, Crowley is a snake in human form, Gen, Presents, winter holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21984274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonimp/pseuds/dragonimp
Summary: “Head Office has never quite what to do with Christmas.”“Why, because it’s a bunch of pagan traditions with the Church smeared over the top?”He chuckled as he moved the stepstool down to the next bookcase.  “Well—yes.  And stolen traditions have a way of retaining their original purpose, no matter how much of a façade you put on them.”
Comments: 31
Kudos: 117





	Merry Appropriated Pagan Traditions

**Author's Note:**

> Day late and a dollar short, but have some Christmas fluff.

“Oh, it’s completely a human thing,” Aziraphale was saying.He was on a stepstool tacking red garland along a row of bookcases (the slow way, because it’s “more fun”) while Anathema held the other end. “Head Office has never known quite what to do with Christmas.”

“Why, because it’s a bunch of pagan traditions with the Church smeared over the top?”

He chuckled as he moved the stepstool down to the next bookcase.“Well—yes.And stolen traditions have a way of retaining their original purpose, no matter how much of a façade you put on them.”

Anathema had somehow been talked into taking Adam into London for some Christmas shopping, and she’d convinced him to stop at the bookshop first.Currently Adam was busy with a Winter Village kit Aziraphale had been gracious enough to let him set up in the window.

“Is it true that this wasn’t even a holiday early on?”

“Oh yes, not until the third century after Yeshua’s death.His birth was never meant to be a Holy Day, you know.That’s not where the miracles were.Births weren’t even well recorded back then.”

She handed him the end of the garland.“What, are you telling me there was no choir of angels, no shepherds, or wise men from the east?”

He looked amused.“If there was a choir, I was not invited to it.”He climbed down from the stool and stepped back to survey the decorations.“I’m afraid no accounts where written, not until several decades after the fact.Down here, anyway.I’m sure the Celestial Record has something, but it was never deemed important enough to correct the humans’ version.Or rather, _versions_.”

She snorted at that.

“But it’s become such a _fun_ holiday over the years, I cannot help but enjoy it.Despite Head Office’s views on the matter.”

“Well, in the spirit of appropriated pagan traditions. . . .”Anathema went to the bags she had set down earlier and pulled a flat box out.

“Oh, my dear girl, you really didn’t need to. . . .”

“I know.”She held the box out.“And I’m afraid it’s a little—used.And a little burnt.And—a little expired.”

His eyes widened, and he hesitated only a moment more before accepting.She hadn’t bothered to wrap the box so there was little fanfare as he lifted the top.His soft gasp of reverence told her her instinct had been right.

“Oh . . . but—your family’s book.I—I couldn’t.”

“To be honest—I’m a little sick of it?And I cleared this with my mom.She thinks it’s a great idea.The prophecies have all run out, of course, but I figured, if anyone would appreciate it. . . .”

Aziraphale ran his thumb against the tissue paper padding, stopping just short of touching the cover itself.He finally looked up, beaming at her.“It shall have a place of honor, my dear.Thank you.”

“Crowley around?”

“In the back room.And not in the best of moods, I’m afraid.”

As if she could be deterred by one sullen demon.

She found Crowley perched somewhat improbably on the back of the couch, bundled in several sweaters and at least two scarves (one tartan).His arms were wrapped around his knees as he scrolled his phone and he didn’t bother to do more than grunt to acknowledge her entrance.

“Season’s greetings to you too,” she said.“Too much holiday cheer makes for a grumpy demon?”

He scrunched his face up behind the layers of wool and scoffed.“ _No_ , doesn’t work that way.I mean, it _is_ , but not how you’re thinking.”

Anathema waited.When it became clear she wasn’t leaving, Crowley finally sighed and lowered the phone.“Hell always leaned on us extra hard this time of year.Gotta counter all that _good will_ and _cheer_ going around.”He sighed again.Then muttered, “Having a hard time convincing my brain Hastur isn’t going to come barging up demanding a performance review.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile.

Crowley hunkered down into the sweaters and spat, “And it’s _bloody_ cold.”

“Well _that_ is what electric heating is for.”

Anathema held the bag out.Crowley stared at her from behind his sunglasses, no doubt trying to figure out the catch.Finally she set the bag on the couch and patted his knee.“Merry Appropriated Pagan Traditions, Crowley.”

She left him to frown suspiciously at the parcel and headed out to the front.

Aziraphale was humming to himself as he set up a glass display case, while Adam was crawling around under the now completed Winter Village.“Hey.Great Beast.You done yet?”

“Almost!” he called out.

With that the houses in the Winter Village kit lit up, and the little miniature ice skaters started sliding around on their fake pond.

“Nice!”

“Oh, it looks wonderful, Adam,” Aziraphale said as he came up behind her.“Thank you so much for setting it up.”

Adam grinned as he crawled out from under the table.“You’re coming to Tadfield for New Year’s, yeah?Mum said to make sure you’re coming.”

“My boy, we wouldn’t miss it.”

“Come on,” Anathema said.“We need to get a move on before the shops close.”

“Okay.Bye, ’Ziraphale—bye Crowley!” Adam called to the back room.“Happy Christmas!”

Aziraphale was fairly sure his Winter Village kit hadn’t come with a spaceship or an octopus, but after a moment’s consideration he decided to leave it; it was rather uniquely charming.

“Angel, what the heaven was that all about?” Crowley called out from the back.

“It’s just called having friends, dear.”

He left the little scene running and wandered toward the kitchenette, pausing to run a hand over the display case (which hadn’t existed that morning).He would have to think of something a little extra special for Anathema and her mother.

His musing was interrupted by one of Crowley’s inarticulate sounds—one that he’d heard tragically infrequently over their long acquaintance.Of course he had to reroute to see what had gotten the demon so—well, _joyful_.

He found Crowley perched where he’d left him, but instead of scrolling through his phone he was reading the tag of what looked like a sleeveless black shirt.“Is that from Anathema, dear?”

“It’s heated!”

“Pardon?”

“A heated shirt!”He shoved the little rectangle of cardboard into Aziraphale’s hands.“Did you know these things exist?I didn’t know these things existed.I’m pissed I didn’t know these things existed.”

“Oh!” he said as he skimmed the tag.“How marvelous!Humans come up with the most clever things.”

Crowley snapped his fingers to put the shirt on under the layers he was already wearing, then fiddled at the hem for the controls.

When Aziraphale had gone to light the old wood stove in the back room that morning he’d caught a brief flash of what looked like panic on Crowley’s face.There and then gone, carefully smoothed over into stony indifference—but that was tell enough on the expressive demon.Aziraphale hadn’t said anything, just closed the cold stove and gone to turn up the central heating.

But the central heating was spotty and unreliable, an old system on an older building that had never been designed for it.Aziraphale didn’t mind for himself—angels ran warm—but Crowley . . . well, at his core he would always be a serpent.

He watched now as a slow smile spread over Crowley’s face and he slithered down onto the couch, positively cackling with delight.“It’s sssoo waaarm. . . .”

Aziraphale picked up Crowley’s discarded phone.

“Nnnn . . . angel?” Crowley said when the sound of fingers tapping on a screen finally penetrated his heat-daze.“What’re you doin’?”

“Just because I don’t care to own one of these devices doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of how they work.”

“But what’re . . . are you _texting_?”He made a grab for the phone.“Who’re— _what_ are you texting?Gimme that—”

Aziraphale fended him off long enough to hit “send” on the text he’d written to Anathema (“book girl” in Crowley’s phone) then finally relented.“It’s only courteous to let her know how well her gifts have been received.”

Crowley snatched the phone, huddling over it as he stared at the screen.“I am never letting you near my phone again.”

“Of course, dear.”

Down the street a familiar chime made Anathema pause and pull out her phone.At her (rather undignified) snigger Adam stopped and turned back.“What?Did he like it, then?”

Wordlessly she showed him the photo—Crowley half-curled on the couch, sunglasses askew, with a dopey grin on his face—and the accompanying text: _My dear, you’ve made for a very happy snake_.

It was nice to know her instincts had been on the money.


End file.
